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Pros' tips Janet Fletcher, cookbook author, Napa, California: "Our Viking range has a convection fan in the oven. I turn it on when roasting chicken or when baking potatoes. It speeds up the cooking and, I think, gives a crisper skin in both cases." Robert Jorin, baking instructor, Culinary Institute of America, Napa, California: "While I haven't worked with home convection ovens, our professional convection oven is ideal for laminated doughs. These doughs tend to puff up higher than in regular ovens, but they can burn more easily, too, if you overbake." Kathleen Weber, owner, Della Fattoria bakery, Petaluma, California: "We like the convection oven for speed and even browning. The one tip I have is to really watch the timing. Things will cook faster so you need to stay right there and watch the first batch of cookies you bake and note how long they take so you can adjust the time on your recipe." Shirley O. Corriher, food scientist, Atlanta: "I think you can't bake anything as well without convection. I just love it for biscuits especially. I get more volume with my bread, and it's ideal for cookies. I do find that while I get more even results, I still need to rotate the sheet pans during cooking. I also love convection for roasting meats." David Lebovitz, baker and cookbook author, San Francisco: "I love my convection oven for multiple racks of cookies, or anything I want to dry out, like pate choux. I just don't use it for angel food cake or anything that's going to fly around!' a Joanne Chang, baker, Mistral, Boston: "I use a convection oven for practically everything at the restaurant. I love the even heat. If I had to pick, I'd use convection over a standard oven any old day. I use convection to quickly and evenly toast nuts, to make evenly cooked tuiles to garnish desserts, to bake our brioche and raisin-pecan bread, tart shells and filled tarts, cakes, cookies, and breakfast treats." A conventional oven cooks food primarily by heat radiating from the bottom heating element and from the hot surfaces of the "preheated" oven. all over, rather than just on top (roasting the turkey on a rack in a low-sided baking dish or on a rimmed baking sheet helps to encourage this) . It will also be done much more quickly. Not all convection ovens are "true convection" The extent to which you get these marvelous results depends a lot on the particular convection oven you're using. The best-and most efficient-convection ovens blow heated air into the oven cavity. This means they have a third heating element (in addition to the usual top and bottom elements in a radiant oven) located near or around the fan in the back of the oven. This element heats the air to a uniform temperature before it enters the oven cavity. In many ovens, the third heating element is covered by a baffle, or a panel, which channels air sucked in by the fan past the heating element and back out into the oven (see center the diagram above) . The appliance industry generally calls this type of oven "true convection," "third-element convec- 70 tion," or "European convection" (first popularized in Europe) , so these are the terms to look for when shopping. In an effort however, some manufacturers have come up with their own names. Dacor, for instance, calls its technology "Pure Convection" because its third-element convection also uses a special filtering system that prevents odors from being transferred from one item to another cooking in the same oven. Convection ovens without a third heating ele- to distinguish themselves, ment generally cook less evenly. In the worst examples, this type of oven will have a fan mounted on the outside of the oven and will actually blow unheated air into the oven cavity, randomly mixing up hot and cold air. In most of these ovens, though, the fan is mounted on the inside of the oven cavity, but the air blowing around the food won't be a uniform temperature. With the bottom radiant element fully heated, the oven will have hot and cool spots. You'll find most "true convection" ovens in built-in wall ovens or slide-in ranges, not countertop models. If you're looking for the benefits of convection cooking, you should really upgrade your range or wall ovens rather than buy a countertop convection oven. Full-size ovens generally have better circulation and ventilation, and they may FINE COOKING